Latest great guest post from Digital Skills Academy. See more about their courses here. Title image from Pixabay here.

It is important to know what your own company’s mission is. It is often just as important, and potentially inspiring sometimes to know what other companies are doing too. In the IoT (Internet of Things) sector there are a lot of really interesting things happening. It is very difficult to keep track of everything that is going on. These ten companies will help to give you some sense of what is, and could be, possible in the coming months and years. The great thing about many of these companies is they are solving useful challenges faced by humanity, bringing useful innovations in health, agriculture and many other important areas of our lives. It’s also great to see that all of these companies are from Ireland, the UK and Africa, illustrating that the US and Asia are not having it all their own way.

It’s not just the small startups, and actually it’s often the bigger companies who are making the biggest impact. Intel Ireland are doing some exciting things in the IoT space and are a good illustration that big does not always mean unable to innovate and experiment.

Watch Intel’s Drone 100, a magical and elaborate airborne music and light experience created by a fleet of 100 unmanned aerial vehicles that redefines art, enabled by Intel-powered PCs and digital artists.

Movidious

Movidious, are an Irish company doing some great work in the IoT sector and were recently named in the 50 smartest companies list by MIT. In their words they are “supporting new and innovative embedded vision processing devices pushing enormous amounts of pixel processing to the network edge such as in wearable devices, robotics, or augmented and virtual reality headsets.” There are a lot of exciting potential applications that may come from their work.

Cortechs

Another favourite of ours is Cortechs, led by Aine Behan CEO and neuroscientist and located just around the corner from us here in Dublin. Using IoT to improve concentration for children and retraining their brainwaves for increased concentration. You can hear more on her recent interview for the RTE Innovation Show here on iTunes.

Von Bismark

Another Irish / English based company to look out for are Von Bismark. Based in London and Dublin they are the creators of @themallonxbox Pioneers of #eCommerce for TV. Working with #Microsoft and #Xbox to bring the next generation of eCommerce to your living room. Founder Eoghan O’ Sullivan last year professed a “Minority Report” style ecommerce experience for all was around the corner, and the startup has experienced continued growth since its inception.

ARMembedded

Over in the UK there have also been lots of exciting developments in the IoT sector, and the first company ARMembedded have just been in the news recently as they have been bought by Japan’s SoftBank for €32 billion. A figure that some say might be too little, as the UK faces the same challenges as Irish ones in terms of companies possibly allowing themselves to be bought too early on. ARMembedded create embedded intelligence wherever computing happens, including sensors, MCUs, and the Internet of Things, which is naturally creating many business opportunities for them.

Product Health

Another company to watch out for is Product Health who build smart, connected and healthy batteries. They are also based in London and Nairobi gaining invaluable user insights from two very different markets.